Character: The qualities that define or
sum up an person in a text.
There are three fundamental methods of characterization: (1) the
explicit presentation by the author of the character through direct
exposition, either in an introductory block or more often piecemeal throughout
the work, illustrated by action; (2) the presentation of the character in
action, with little or no explicit comment by the author, in the expectation
that the reader can deduce the attributes of the actor from the actions; and
(3) the representation from within a character, without comment by the author,
of the impact of actions and emotions on the character's inner self.
Regardless of the method by which a character is presented, the
author may concentrate on a dominate trait to the exclusion of other aspects
of personality, or the author may attempt to present a fully rounded
creation. If the presentation of a single dominate trait is carried to an
extreme, not a believable character but a caricature will result. . .
. On the other hand, the author may present so convincing a congeries of
personality traits that a complex rather than a simple character emerges; such
a character is three-dimensional or, in E.M. Forster's term, "round" . . . .
Furthermore, a character may be either static or dynamic.
A static character is one who changes little if at all. Things happen to
such a character rather than showing the character changing in response to the
actions. . . . A dynamic character, on the other hand, is one who is modified
by actions and experiences, and one objective of the work in which the
character appears is to reveal the consequences of these actions.

Comedy: Any work, particularly a work of drama
which is marked by a happy ending and a less exalted style than than in
tragedy. It seeks to depict the ludicrous--that which makes people laugh--by
a vareity of means, and seldom is concerned to appear "real." Indeed, though
its style and methods, a comedy often clearly implies, "This isn't true. It's
only funny."

Exaggeration: When an object or person
or situation is made to seem extremely large or small in relationship to its
true size or importance.

Incongruity: "When.. . a particular movement is
perceived, the impulsion is given to forming an idea of it by means of a
certain expenditure of energy. In
>trying to understand=,
therefore, in apperceiving this movement, I make a certain expenditure, and in
this portion of the mental process I behave exactly as though I were putting
myself in the place of the person I am observing. But at the same moment,
probably, I bear in mind the aim of this movement, and my earlier experience
enables me to estimate the scale of expenditure required for reaching that
aim. . . . If the other person=s
movement is exaggerated and inexpedient, my increased expenditure in order to
understand it is inhibited, as it were in the act of being mobilized; it is
declared superfluous and is free for use elsewhere or perhaps for discharge by
laughter. . . . Thus a uniform explanation is provided of the fact that a
person appears comic to us if, in comparison with ourselves, he makes too
great an expenditure on his bodily functions and too little on his mental
ones; and it cannot be denied that in both these cases our laughter expresses
a pleasurable sense of the superiority which we feel in relation to him. If
the relation in the two cases is reversed (if the other person's physical
expenditure is found to be less than ours or his mental expenditure greater)
then we no longer laugh, we are filled with astonishment and admiration.@B Freud, Jokes and
Their Relation to the Unconscious

Mock Epic: a form that burlesques the
epic by treating a trivial subject in the grand style or uses the epic
formulas to make a trivial subject by ludricrously overstating it. A
successful mock epic has a clear effect: to ridicule trivial or silly
conduct; to mock the pretensions and absurdities of epic proper; to bestow on
affectionate measure of elevation on low or foolish characters; and to bestow
a humanizing, deflating, or debunking measure on elevated characters.

Plot: The events or actions which take place in a
text presented in the order in which they are revealed in the text. The plot
always has a forward progress: it begins at the beginning, it has a middle,
and it ends with an ending. The text need not present these in this order,
but, for a plot to exist, all must be in the text. To present evidence of the
plot, one must present an accurate summary of all its parts.

Point of View: The vantage point from
which an author presents a story. If the author serves as a seemingly
all-knowing maker, the points of view is called omniscient. At the
other extreme, a character in the story--major, minor, or marginal--may tell
the story as he or she experienced it. Such a character is usually called a
first-person narrator; if the character does not comprehend the
implications of what is told, the character is called a naive narrator.
The author may tell the story in the third person and yet present it as it is
seen and understood by a single character, restricting information to what
that character sees, hears, feels, and thinks; such a point of view is said to
be limited. The author may employ such a point of view and restrict
the presentation to the interior responses of the point of view character,
resulting in the interior monologue., The author may present material
by a process of narrative exposition in which actions and conversation are
presented in summary rather than in detail; this method is called panoramic.
On the other hand, the author may present actions and conversations in detail,
as they occur, and more or less objectively--without authorial comment; such a
method is usually called scenic. If the author never speaks in his or
her own person and does not obviously intrude, the author is said to be
self-effacing. In extended works, authors frequently employ several
methods. . . .

Setting: The places and historical times in
which the actions of a text are said to take place. They may be general,
highly specific, or both.